Year 4: With seven kids under the age of five I go on the pill, but life has other plans. During a course of antibiotics I become pregnant with twin boys. HugoPeter and OscarPhilip are born when twins Stella and Leo are 3, Mae is 2, and Gus, Winnie, Dex, and Wiley are 1.

Year 6: We buy a house! It has 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, and we convert the basement and attic into more bedrooms for our horde of kids.

Year 7: Some bad electrical work causes a house fire. No one is hurt but we're forced to move again, the insurance pays for us to buy a bigger house with enough bedrooms for everyone.

Year 8: Now that Hugo and Oscar are 4; Gus, Winnie, Dex, and Wiley are 5; Mae is 7; and Stella and Leo are 8, I start to miss having a baby around the house. I convince Beck to try again but unfortunately miscarry at 7 weeks.

Year 9: I get a new job! My first novel gets picked up by a publisher and I am given a contract to write three more books in the series.

Year 10: We try again for a baby, but miscarry again at 10 weeks.

Year 11: We try again, and miscarry at 4 weeks.

Year 12: I publish the second book in my series and it becomes a NewYork Times bestseller!

Year 13: Beck and I still want another baby but we're scared to try again after three miscarriages in a row. We adopt a 13 month old baby girl from China instead. Her name is Song Xiu.

Year 14: Our adoption agency contacts us a year after we adopt Song and tells us that another baby girl was put up for adoption by the same mother. Our agency wants to know if we would be interested in adopting Song's sister also and we of course agree. She is 10 weeks old when we bring her home and her name is Min Na.